March in Chelsea

Walking through the gallery district in Chelsea, I am trying seeing as much art as possible. Stopping first at Jenkins Johnson for a photography double hitter, where in the front room there are series of cityscapes. The cityscapes are composed of nine smaller works in 3x3 squares in black frames. Courtney Johnson uses the black frames to highlight the neon lights of a city’s nightlife which Johnson is focusing on. Moving to the back gallery was the work of William Wylie titled “Stills”, a series of black and white photos of flowing water that are both quiet and beautiful.

Next stop is Gana Art to see the complex monochromatic works of trees made with burned incense holes on rice paper and displayed on scrolls. Walking into this dark gallery, these works invokes a memories of walking through the forest as a kid. Now its time to leave this relaxing atmosphere and head back out into the hustle and bustle of NYC to reach Betty Cunningham for the works of William Bailey. The first room consists of mostly of small still lives that have a similar focus and color palette to that of Giorgio Morandi. Along with the paintings are figure studies that show Bailey’s quick touch renders and gorgeous line quality. His larger works in the back of the gallery, kept the muted palette of the still lives but the figures lacked energy. Using stylized figures, Bailey created quiet scenes in a difficult world which I believe would be eased with a little R and R with a bottle of anything.

So, I took this as a hint to stop looking at my first passion and move on to my second, Booze! Barcade opens at 2pm and is equipped with a rotating beer selection for there 20 plus taps, so there had to be something new. IPAs seem to be crossing my lips more frequently so a natural choice was Arcadia’s Hop Mouth Double IPA with its hoppy aroma with a kiss of citrus. This cloudy brownish-orange ale is bitter, hoppy beer is slightly off set by the grapefruit and leaves the tongue feeling dry. With a 8.1 ABA, I would recommend this any fan of IPAs.

Stumbling back to my old stomping ground I go back to Sweet Revenge a.k.a. Close Bar, to found a new beer on tap, Kelso’s Nut Brown Ale. Having a dark brown color with a sweet hoppy aroma, this beer created sheer excitement within me. Its almond taste was light and flavorful with a ABA of 5.75 finishes with a sweet nutty conclusion. Kelso a Brooklyn based brewery made a drinkable beer that could easily turn from one to four before you know it.